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16
Jainism As Metaphilosophy
philosophy) more difficult to arrive at than understanding philosophy as denoting systems of philosophy?"
A recent renowned Indian philosopher offers this answer to our queries. “Instances of philosophy occur first”, he observes, and continues: "and this enables us to raise a general question regarding its nature."" He adds : “...the elucidation of the concept of philosophy is more difficult than the exposition of a philosophical system. For the former is a question of the second order, of a deeper layer underlying the overt and avowed one... philosophy of philosophy... stands on a deeper level of reflective consciousness."10
In our terms: investigating the question as to what is involved in arriving at philosophical positions or building systems of philosophy is more difficult than 'describing' a philosophical system. Since the latter is thus admittedly an easier task, it is natural to look into it first. And because it is closely related to the more difficult question of the methodology at work (in building the system of philosophy), the concrete doctrines and theories themselves are quite helpful in identifying the presuppositions of the philosophical system itself.
This has been the rationale behind our outlining the Jaina view (philosophy of Jainism) for delineating the concept of philosophy implicit in it. Before proceeding further it may well be tc spell it out. In this context three lines of analysis in regard to philosophy can be visualised:
1. What is the scope and subject-matter of philosophy? 2. If philosophy is understood as a system, what are the methods
employed in this process of system-building? 3. What is the purpose of philosophising?
In regard to the first question, the Jaina view, as has been indicated by considering its view of Substance, is that Rcality is the subject-malter of philosophy. The scope of philosophical analysis, however is not to be restricted to considering any one aspect of Rcalily, however important it might be.
For the sake of convenience, two aspects of the analysis may be more specifically commented upon, viz. the objective and the subjcctive.
The former which has also been quite often referred to as the outer or external aspects, may be conceded as striking the attention of the philosopher at first. It is because of this that the nature of the world
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